Sweet Dreams are Made of This
by Monroe-Militia
Summary: When Bass is taken over by the nanotech, he gets a glimpse of what his perfect dream world would be and who would be in it.
1. Chapter 1

Sebastian Monroe woke up to the feeling of warmth against his chest and the light tickle of hair against his face. He nuzzled closer, inhaling the familiar scent.

As he opened his eyes, he lifted his head a little and brought his hand away from Charlie's hip to gently brush the hair back from her neck before pressing his lips against the newly exposed flesh.

Charlie stirred a little and rolled over to look at him with sleepy eyes, a lazy smile on her lips.

He smiled back then pressed his lips to her forehead before she snuggled up closer.

Not long after, her steady, rhythmic, breathing gave away that she had already fallen back asleep. He smiled a little to himself as he looked down at her before he too shut his eyes.

* * *

When Bass woke up for the second time, he found the other side of the bed already empty.

That seemed strange, so he dragged himself out of bed and walked into the living room, rubbing at his eyes tiredly as he walked out in just his boxers.

"About time that you got up," Charlie commented as she walked over to him.

"I almost missed you apparently," Bass commented.

One of his hands grabbed hers and pulled her closer, while the other moved to the small of her back as he drew her in for a good morning kiss.

"You sure, did," Charlie responded. "I'm just on my way out."

"Can't you be late?" Bass asked in a rumbling growl.

"I already am late," Charlie responded in a teasing tone. "And it's your family that I'm meeting… About your birthday."

"Do I really need another big surprise party?" Bass questioned in a playfully complaining tone. "Do you know what would be a real surprise? If for once my mom didn't throw me a surprise party, or at least had it not on my actual birthday… Three months late, now that would be a real surprise party."

"Oh come on, you know you like the attention," Charlie pointed out with a wide grin.

"True," Bass agreed as he moved a step closer to her, his hands moving to grab onto her hips. "But I also like this attention too."

Charlie laughed loudly before she brought her lips back to his. "I'll be back later. Try to survive without me."

"I can try," he told her. "But if you come back to find my dead body, then that's on you."

She shot him one last grin and rolled her eyes before heading out the door.

* * *

Once she was gone, Bass made his way to the kitchen in search of something to eat. He didn't feel much like bothering to make anything difficult, so he just popped some Eggos into the toaster. As they toasted he made his way to the fridge and took a large chug out of a jug of orange juice before he grabbed the maple syrup, along with the juice, and moved them over to the kitchen counter.

He had the whole day ahead of him and a whole lot of nothing to do, so he took his breakfast into the living room and turned on the TV as he ate. He flipped through the channels until he found an action movie that was just starting. He was pretty sure that he'd seen it before, but figured that there probably wouldn't be anything better on during a Saturday morning, so he left it on as he began to eat.

* * *

"You look like you've had a productive day," Charlie commented with a smirk when she came home and found him in the living room, still on the couch with a beer in hand. He was caught up in watching the ending of the second sequel to the action movie.

He set his drink down and then turned around to look at her. She quickly hid something behind her back as she continued to stand behind the couch, keeping her body blocking his view of what was in her one hand as she roughly hit him in the shoulder with the other.

"Don't look!" She told him in a tone that would have been a lot more threatening if she didn't have a big grin plastered on her lips.

Bass continued to stare at her with a wide smile for several seconds then looked her up and down one last time before he finally turned his gaze back towards the TV screen. His attention, however, still remained primarily on her.

"Oh sure, you abandon me all day and now I'm not even allowed to look at you," he teased, calling after her as she left the room to go hide whatever had been behind her back. "I'm starting to feel a little abused."

"You're right. You're just a sad, neglected puppy, aren't you?" She taunted back playfully as she returned to the room.

"You think that you're so funny, don't you?" He challenged as he twisted in his seat to look back at her once again.

"You know I am," she responded, leaning against the edge of the couch.

A shriek of laughter emerged from her throat as he suddenly grabbed her waist and pulled her over the back of the couch. As he fell back into his seat, she landed on top of him. His arms were wrapped around her waist and she was still laughing as her head fell back onto his shoulder. He had to grin at her reaction.

"So, do I even get a hint about tomorrow?" He asked, his voice husky in her ear.

"It's a surprise," she told him in an amused tone. "That's kind of the idea of a surprise party."

"An _annual_ surprise party," Bass corrected.

"That just means that you don't have to plan your own party," she pointed out. "…So is this all you did all day? Sat at home watching movies?"

Since Charlie had come home, Bass had all but forgotten about the movie he'd been watching.

"I also worked on my surprised face," he joked. "It's getting so good that I should copyright it."

"Maybe, you should try a new one this time," she commented. "Change things up."

He let out a low chuckle at that before pointing out, "You know, I could just call Miles or Cyn or Angie to tell me."

"We both know that Miles avoids us and our planning at all costs, with the rare exception of submitting the occasional suggestion," Charlie pointed out. "So you wouldn't be able to get much out of him. And neither of your sisters is going to give you any information without some major bribing."

He let out an exaggerated sigh before he told her, "You're probably right."

"You know I'm right," Charlie told him before turning her head to kiss him.

"How in the hell did I get lucky enough to get you?" He asked, more to himself than to her.

"I ask myself that every day," she told him with a laugh.

"And yet I'm the self-obsessed one in this relationship," he commented with a grin.

"We're both lucky," she pointed out in a slightly more serious tone before a smirk crossed her lips. "And your title as the self-obsessed one is well-earned. You take more time than me to get ready in the morning because you're so busy staring at yourself in the mirror."

"And if I looked like you, I'd spend all day staring at any and every reflective surface," he informed her.

"And we'd both look beyond self-obsessed dating someone who looks exactly like us," Charlie responded.

Bass shifted a little, sliding a hand up under her shirt.

"Don't," she warned, but it was already too late.

"I bet that I can make you tell me something now," he said into her ear as he began to tickle her side.

Charlie began to laugh as she tried to shift out of his grip with no success. He only started tickling her harder, causing her to quickly jerk in his grasp. As she did so, she elbowed him in the gut, which effectively stopped him.

He quickly released his grasp on her, moving one hand over to where he had been elbowed. He let out a loud groan, pretending to be in more pain than he really was.

"You are such a faker," she accused, sitting up and turning her body towards him.

Bass leaned forward, bringing his mouth to hers, his lips already parted. Charlie kissed him back passionately, bringing a hand to the back of his head to pull him closer as she opened her mouth to grant him further access.

"I think you're trying to distract me," Bass murmured against her lips as his hands found their way to her hips.

"I think you like it," she purred back at him before her teeth began to tug lightly on his bottom lip as her hands slid down the back of his shirt.

"And I think that you're right again," he responded.

Before she had the opportunity to respond, he pressed his mouth back against hers and she could feel his lips quirking up into a smile.

* * *

**A/N: Please read and review! :) Thanks for reading!  
**


	2. Chapter 2

"I'm telling you that there is something off about him," Miles hissed out, struggling to keep his voice quiet so that their fighting wouldn't be overheard.

"I don't see it," Rachel insisted. "He seems like the same arrogant bastard to me."

"Rachel, please," Miles said in a pleading tone. "I am begging you. There is something wrong with him."

"There's always something wrong with him," she interjected.

"Something else. I don't even really know how to describe it," he struggled to explain. "I've known Bass for my whole life and I am telling you that whatever that thing is, it is not him. It's just some kind of copy. And, yes, I realize how crazy I sound right now."

"You really think that the nanites took over Monroe?" Rachel questioned, seeming reluctant to accept the theory.

"Yes!" Miles said, getting the slightest bit of relief from the fact that she finally seemed to be beginning to understand what he had been trying to explain to her for the last ten minutes. "They already did it to Aaron once."

"Even if what you're suggesting is true, which I'm not necessarily agreeing that it is," Rachel began to respond, choosing her words carefully as she did so. "What can we even do about it?"

* * *

Bass woke up on his birthday to find Charlie dancing through the room to the faint sound of the radio coming from the kitchen as she picked out clothes for the day and threw them down onto the foot of her side of the bed.

As he sat up, he questioned, "Babe? Why does it smell like you're trying to burn the house down?"

She turned around as he began to stand up and told him, "No, don't get up! I'm making you breakfast in bed."

"No offence, but it smells more like you're burning breakfast to me," he responded as he began to head for the bedroom door.

He could hear her footsteps behind him as she insisted, "I only left it alone for like two minutes, I swear."

"Yes, but we both know how well it goes when you try to cook," he pointed out as he turned into the kitchen.

He instantly spotted the source of the smell, a frying pan that was letting off smoke, so he quickly turned the stove off. When he looked inside, he couldn't even tell what she had been attempting to make since it was so blackened and burnt.

"I'd try and eat this to make you feel better, but I'm honestly not sure that it's even edible," he told her.

She was looking pretty defeated, so he took a step closer to her and wrapped his arms around her waist before kissing her on the top of the head.

"I love you, Charlie. But you can't cook to save your life," he commented with a chuckle.

A second passed before she pulled back from him with a big grin on her face.

He turned and threw out what he could of her attempt at breakfast before he tossed the pan into the sink. He figured that he could try and scrape off the rest of the charred and blackened remains of her cooking later.

When he turned back around, she was dumping the contents of a box of Pop Tarts out onto the kitchen table with a triumphant smile.

"There," she told him. "Your birthday feast."

He let out a laugh as he told her, "It's perfect."

* * *

As they got into the car a while later, Bass joked, "I wonder where we're going."

"Hey, your mom thinks that I'm some kind of scheming genius tricking you every year," Charlie told him with a grin.

"My mom is also very gullible," he retorted.

"And it's cute that you pretend to be surprised for her every year."

* * *

When they arrived at Bass's parents' house, Charlie turned and asked him, "You've got your surprised face ready?"

"I always do."

"Then let's go."

She gave him a quick kiss before getting out of the car.

* * *

When they opened the door, Connor was already walking through the middle of the room with a bottle of water in hand.

"Surprise," he mumbled sarcastically as he turned to head for the back door.

Bass and Charlie both followed him.

"They're outside... I know, shocking," Connor commented as they walked through the door.

"Way to ruin the surprise for your grandmother, Connor," his grandfather commented once they were outside.

"You're right, my bad," Connor retorted just as sarcastically as he had spoken to his father. "Excuse me for going to get a drink for the pregnant girl... Besides, do you really think that he would have been surprised either way?"

With that Connor walked over to his girlfriend and handed her the water bottle that he had been carrying.

As Bass watched with a grin, Charlie whispered to him, "You look like you were actually surprised for once."

"He's right, Connor," Miles piped up with a smirk. "You ruined everything. We should probably just cancel the whole party now."

"I agree. You should just go home, Miles," Bass taunted his friend. "Who even invited you?"

"I wouldn't have made the cut if everyone else you knew wasn't already here," Miles shot back.

Miles may have been exaggerating a little, but it was actually pretty close to the truth. Both Bass's and Charlie's families were there along with Jeremy, Duncan, and Miles' girlfriend, Nora.

"That's not true," Connor pointed out with a smirk. "Mom's not here. I'm pretty sure that she's pretending that she was never invited."

"Or maybe she's just pretending you were never born," Miles added helpfully. "Either way."

* * *

**A/N: Please read and review! A huge thanks goes out to samanthalininger, JM2788, perfectmanhatten, and IceonFire7 for reviewing the first chapter! :)  
**


	3. Chapter 3

"Have you noticed anything weird about Bass lately?" Miles asked as he watched to make sure that the man was nowhere in sight.

"What do you mean?" Charlie questioned. "Isn't he always a little weird?"

"I mean different weird," Miles said with a sigh.

"Mom told me that you think that the nanites got to him, but I don't know," she admitted with a shrug. "Why would they have taken him over if they're not doing anything with him?"

"I don't know," he responded in an exasperated tone. "Maybe they're trying to collect information... I don't know why they're doing it, I just know that there's something really off about him lately and no one else seems to be able to see it."

Charlie paused to think back on Bass's behaviour over the last few days, really searching for anything off or different about it.

"I wouldn't have noticed anything off if you weren't so convinced," Charlie admitted. "But since you're saying that, I guess he might have been acting a little differently the last couple of days."

There was nothing big or too noticeably out of the ordinary. If the nanites really had taken over him, then they were pretending to be him pretty convincingly. She guessed that would make sense if they were inside his head. Still, even after all that she knew about how close Bass and Miles had been she was impressed that Miles had been able to see it.

The only difference that Charlie could think of was the looks. Since travelling together alone, they had developed a way of kind of communicating with a quick exchanged glance. It wasn't that they hadn't shared any glances in the last couple of days- They had -But now that she really thought about it, there was something a little bit off about the exchanges. It was almost as if the looks were still there, but only as a mask with something empty behind them.

"Alright, so maybe I believe you," Charlie admitted. "Then what's the plan?"

* * *

Bass smiled to himself as he watched Charlie, on the other side of the yard, laughing at something that Miles had said.

"When are you going to get it over with and propose to her?" Cynthia asked as she walked up beside her brother. "You can barely keep your eyes off of her still."

"Still?" Bass questioned as he turned to look at her. "Why do you sound so surprised?"

He chose to ignore her first question.

"When you two first got together, me and Angie had a bet about how long you'd last," she admitted.

"And I'm just hearing about this now?" He asked before taking a sip of his beer. "So how long did you two bet on?"

"I said three weeks," Cynthia told him.

"Oh, really?" He asked incredulously. "Three weeks? That's nice."

"It is compared to Angie's bet," she told him. "She bet on less than a week."

Bass shook his head in disbelief.

"Remind me to kick her ass later," he told her. "…Remind me to kick _your_ ass later."

"I think I'll pass on that," Cynthia responded with a laugh. "You still didn't answer my question."

"I know," he insisted. "That was intentional."

"So was me bringing it back up. Seriously, why haven't you proposed to her yet?"

"I'm not answering that."

"Because you have no answer, right?" She challenged. "Fine, I'll just go start asking Miles and Charlie about it… Unless you want to give me an answer."

"Don't you dare," he warned her.

"Then just tell me one thing," she requested. "Are you ever going to propose to her?"

"Maybe?" He said with a small laugh.

"Oh my god, are you blushing?"

"No."

"Yes, you are," Cynthia insisted.

"Shut up." He told her. "I don't blush."

"Hey, Angie," his sister called out. "Bass is blushing, isn't he?"

"Like a bride on her wedding day," Angela responded.

Cynthia turned to her brother with a grin, "Speaking of brides."

"Nope," he told her. "Not a word. You said that you'd stop if I answered one question."

"You said maybe," she pointed out. "That's a terrible answer."

"Alright, that's it," Bass said. "I'm done. I'm walking away now."

"Where? Over to Charlie? Feel free to trip and land on your knees in front of her," Cynthia told him. "Maybe pull a ring out of thin air."

He turned and glared at her over his shoulder before continuing to walk away from her.

* * *

Bass stopped next to his son and asked, "Did you know about your aunts' bet on how long me and Charlie would last?"

"Yeah," Connor responded. "Miles made a hundred bucks when you two lasted over a month."

"Of course he was in on it," Bass said with a small chuckle. "So are they on you to propose to Natalie?"

"No. Why?" Connor questioned as he turned to look at his father.

"Unbelievable," Bass muttered. "You're the one with the knocked up girlfriend and I'm the one they're trying to get to propose."

"But you're too old to have a girlfriend," Connor pointed out with a smirk. "And maybe Charlie's pregnant, but you just don't know it yet. Could be why they're after you."

"No, I'd know if Charlie was pregnant," Bass insisted as he thoughtfully watched her as she excitedly told Nora something.

"Are you sure?" Connor asked. "Have you seen her drinking lately?"

Bass mulled it over for in his head. His son did have a point. He couldn't remember the last time that he's seen Charlie drink something alcoholic. Maybe there was some logic to his son's theory after all.

* * *

Bass walked up behind his girlfriend and wrapped his arms around her waist as he murmured into her ear, "Can I talk to you for a minute inside?"

She turned around in his hold and wrapped her arms loosely around his neck as she grinned and told him, "I guess I could talk to you. I mean, it is your birthday, right?"

* * *

Once they were alone in the kitchen, Charlie hopped up to sit on the counter before asking, "What did you want to talk about?"

Bass hesitated for a moment before telling her, "This is probably going to sound crazy..."

"What?" She asked with a smile.

There was a short pause before he let out a nervous laugh and asked, "Are you pregnant?"

"How did you figure that out?" Charlie asked, much to his surprise.

"I didn't," he responded. "Connor did from something Cyn said."

"I didn't tell your sister," she told him. "I was going to tell you first tonight."

"So you're really pregnant?" Bass asked with a grin.

She bit down on her lip to hold back a smile as she nodded her head.

Bass took a few steps forward to close the distance between them as he pulled her in for a kiss.

Charlie had just wrapped her legs around his waist when a voice interrupted them.

"This is a kitchen, Sebastian, not a bedroom."

Charlie's legs dropped to his sides as Bass turned around to face his mother.

"Charlie's pregnant, Mom," he told her with a wide grin.

"Well, that's great for you two, but it doesn't mean that you need to try for another one on my counter," she told him.

Charlie's arms wrapped over his shoulders as she laughed into his neck while Bass's mother turned back out of the room.

"You realize that she's going to go tell everyone, right?" Bass asked.

"And whose fault is that?" Charlie teased.

"Come on, we'd better get back outside," he told her as he grabbed her legs and lifted her off the counter.

She let out a laugh as she wrapped her arms tighter around his chest.

* * *

**A/N: Please read and review! A huge thanks goes out to IceonFire7, samanthalininger, foreverVam, Daedalos, and perfectmanhatten for reviewing the second chapter :)  
**


	4. Chapter 4

Bass, or the thing that was wearing his face at the moment, let out a sadistic laugh.

"Did you really think that it would be that easy, Miles?" It asked. "Did you _really_ think that you could throw together a half-thought through plan to hit us over the head and that we would just disappear?"

"Well I was hoping," Miles admitted with an innocent shrug.

"Oh, Miles. Always with the humour," the nanites commented. "Do you think that hides how broken you are from the rest of the world?"

"If you're going to kill me, then just shut up and kill me," Miles insisted.

Charlie didn't look impressed with Miles' encouraging it to kill him. She purposely remained where she had already been standing, a fair distance away from Bass's body, as she shot her uncle a thorough glare.

* * *

"Put me down," Charlie ordered.

"What's the magic words?" Bass asked her.

"Please?" She asked as her grinning face appeared in his peripheral vision.

"Nope. That's not it," he insisted.

"You're so hot that I can barely control myself from tearing my clothes off right now?" Charlie tried again.

"That'll do," Bass told her with a grin.

Charlie tightened her grip on his chest as she moved to kiss him.

Bass turned his head to give her a quick kiss back, which quickly began to escalate and ended up getting quite drawn out.

"You two realize how disgusting you are, right?" Danny, who had been standing there throughout the entire conversation, asked.

Charlie pulled her lips away with a laugh and Bass set her down on the ground.

"You are so ungrateful," she accused her brother. "I just lied to my boyfriend's face so that he'd let me down to hug you."

"Hold on. Lied?" Bass asked as he grabbed her around the waist from behind and pulled her to him.

"I'm actually not having that tough of a time keeping my clothes on in front of both of our families," Charlie admitted as she turned in his hold so that their chests were touching. She offered him a small smile. "But I love you."

Bass grinned as he craned his neck down to kiss her again. His hands moved from her waist to grab hers and he intertwined their fingers together.

"I love you too."

"_So _disgusting," Danny insisted.

"Danny, wait!" Charlie demanded urgently as her brother turned to walk away. "You forgot your hug after all that I went through for you!"

Bass laughed as he let go of Charlie and she immediately went barrelling at her brother, enthusiastically wrapping her arms around his shoulders.

* * *

"What the hell do you want from Monroe?" Rachel demanded.

Nanite Bass paused for a moment before letting out a laugh that didn't sound quite right.

"You're right. What could we possibly want out of the head of General Sebastian Monroe?" They asked. "We've already told you, Rachel. We want to fix humans. We want to lead your species to greatness. Sebastian Monroe is a wealth of knowledge on how to lead. We want to know how to convince others to follow us willingly."

Rachel was horrified into silence. It was bad enough that they were planning on trying to take over humans completely. It was even worse that they were planning on using Monroe's methods to do so.

"We thought that it would be more difficult to get access to the parts of Sebastian's head that we need, but the truth is that he's even more broken on the inside than you are, Miles," they commented.

For once Miles remained silent, although his eyes were shooting daggers.

"Aaron had some fight in him. He tried to escape the beautiful dream world we put him in and fought to remember. He wondered which was the dream world and which was the real one as we struggled to keep him contained," they continued. "Sebastian accepted the world that we put him into far too easily. It's pathetic, really. He's clinging onto the world that we gave him for dear life. And you want us to take that away from him? What kind of friends does that make you?"

* * *

"How long did you know?" Cynthia asked her brother. "Did you seriously let me bother you about proposing for that entire conversation without even dropping a hint about Charlie's pregnancy?"

"I didn't know then," Bass admitted. "I just found out in the kitchen barely ten minutes ago."

"Well come here," Cynthia insisted as she stretched out her arms.

"I'm not a hugger," Bass protested weakly.

"Shut up. Yes, you are," his sister insisted before wrapping her arms around him.

Bass hugged his sister tightly back and let out a laugh as he heard her ask, "So now are you going to propose?"

* * *

"I think that we should play a game," the nanites suggested as a smirk crossed Bass's features.

"How about we don't," Miles countered.

"Play the game and I'll give you your friend back," they offered in a tone that sounded much more like a threat than a gift. "We already have the information that we need from him and keeping him in his dream world is growing tedious anyways..."

They paused for a moment as they looked around the room before their gaze settled on Charlie.

"Charlotte, you've been awfully quiet. How would you like to play?"

Charlie felt bile rise in her throat at the sound of the nanites calling her 'Charlotte', especially while they were wearing Bass's face. She took a deep swallow before answering them in a voice that came out shakier than she would have preferred.

"What kind of game?"

"Charlie, don't!" Rachel called out.

She was horrified at the idea that Charlie was considering a game that might end in Rachel losing her other child to Sebastian Monroe as well.

"A guessing game," they responded. "We want you to guess what Sebastian's dream world is."

"Huh?" Miles asked in complete surprise.

"We're curious," they insisted. "We want to hear her guess."

There was a brief silence before Rachel spoke up. "He's probably dreaming that he has the republic back with Connor next to him on one side and Miles on the other."

"Is that what you think, Charlotte?"

Charlie couldn't bear to look into the eyes of the things controlling Bass as she shifted from foot to foot.

How was she supposed to know what Bass's dream world was like? She didn't know him that well. No one really did but Miles. So why weren't they asking him?

"I don't know," Charlie admitted.

"Guess." They insisted, using their best General Monroe impression.

"Why are you asking me?" She demanded. "I _don't_ know. He's probably imagining somewhere with Connor and Emma and Miles."

A sadistic smirk crossed Bass's features.

"Well was she right?" Miles finally questioned after a long, drawn out silence.

"We didn't say that she had to be right. We just said that she had to guess."

With that, Bass's entire body went limp and he fell to the ground in a heap. At the same time, a swarm of fireflies appeared in the room out of seemingly nowhere. They hovered over his body for a moment before they disappeared out of the open door.

* * *

**A/N: Please read and review! A ginormous thanks goes out to JM2788 and Daedalos for being amazing and reviewing last chapter! :)  
**


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